The New York's recording of Mutter-Masur's Beethoven's Violin Concerto . . . is also a live one and captures pretty much all the delicate tracery and range of tone and vibrato that so delighted a packed RFH this week. For me it is the finest of recent recordings of this concerto.

Miscellaneous /
David Mellor,
Mail on Sunday / 08. February 2004

A radical re-think of a classic - novel, provocative, sensual ...

Record Review /
Rob Cowan,
Gramophone (London) / 01. December 2002

Anne-Sophie Mutter's and Kurt Masur's intorspective account of the Beethoven concerto is thoughtful and revealing of detail, an antidote for those who view the score as a romantic ramble . . . The "Romances" are splendidly done . . .

Record Review /
William Starr,
Sunday Times (Valley Edition) / 12. January 2003

Joachim Kaiser: Gustav Mahler once said that Beethoven had no competition, and this surely applies to the Violin Concerto. An aura unlike that of any other concerto surrounds this work, and it must therefore be a special moment in the life of every violinist when a teacher or some other trusted person says: “Well, now you can learn the Beethoven Concerto!” When did that moment come for you?

Anne-Sophie Mutter: It was in 1978, a year after my début with Herbert von Karajan. He thought I should study the Beethoven next, which I did for half a year with my teacher Aida Stucki. Then, as we’d agreed, I travelled to Lucerne to play it for Karajan. But a little way into the piece he said to me: “Go home and come back next year.” A year later his judgment was more lenient, and for nearly a week between his rehearsals and concerts we worked continuously on the concerto. Technical problems didn’t interest him at all. He always looked at things from a bird’s-eye view, and as a result I still approach this concerto – which isn’t at all a virtuoso work – very much as a collaboration with the orchestra. Maybe it was because the soloist at the première, Franz Clement, was not a great virtuoso; but in any case Beethoven certainly never intended with this concerto to oblige violinists’ cravings for technical antics.

JK: And yet, though it isn’t a virtuoso concerto, many violinists consider it perhaps the most difficult one in the entire literature.

ASM: Yes, that’s right.

JK: Does it have to do with the fact that the violin often just accompanies the orchestra?

ASM: Yes, it does. For long stretches the solo violin plays only arpeggiated triads, nothing more. Nevertheless there’s always a musical statement being made, and you have to formulate that. The architecture of the first movement, with its great arches of tension, needs the most careful planning. The trains of thought are wide-ranging, comparable to the language of Thomas Mann.

JK: If these broken chords aren’t absolutely in tune, it becomes terribly apparent, but your playing is wonderfully clean – with you the violin actually sounds completely pure. That’s probably at least as dif-ficult as in a Mozart concerto.

ASM: In Mozart every note counts. You can’t take anything away and you can’t add anything – it would spoil it all. I don’t think you can say that about any other composer beside Beethoven and Mozart.

JK: Did you love the Beethoven Concerto from the beginning or would you have preferred to play a different concerto back then with Karajan?

ASM: No, I’ve always loved it, but I was terribly afraid of playing it because I’d grown up with the notion that you first needed to have reached a certain age. By this I don’t mean a biological age, but personal maturity and humility are vitally important in the face of Beethoven’s tragic character.

JK: I believe that you’ve played the concerto differently over the years, and when I look back at your artistic career – which hasn’t even reached the half-way mark – I would say that your interpretation has become increasingly dramatized.

ASM: I try not to repeat something and always assume that I don’t know a piece and that I’ll rediscover it afresh tomorrow. I don’t know how I played the Beethoven Concerto 20 years ago. That doesn’t even interest me.

JK: Do you listen to your old recordings?

ASM: No, I’d rather not have to justify how I played it then, either to myself or to my listeners.

JK: But what about the G major Sonata op. 96 or the “Archduke” Trio op. 97?

ASM: Those are late exceptions, but earlier – and the Violin Concerto comes from his middle period – he had real problems with it.

JK: Which cadenza do you play?

ASM: Kreisler’s.

JK: That’s the most exciting one, isn’t it?

ASM: Yes. It also makes it possible to display virtuosity without straying too far from the character of the concerto.

JK: What about the rondo? The theme recurs about 20 times: do you think the repetitions should be varied?

ASM: I leave that to be determined completely on the spur of the moment, although my bowing and phrasing always stay the same. With string instruments you can also obtain new colours through fingering, and in the recapitulation I always play the theme with a different fingering than in the exposition, not to mention completely different gestures.

JK: The themes have “experienced” something in the meantime, and if that isn’t made clear there’s really no point in playing any more music.

ASM: Right, then there’s no need for any repetition. But the repetition is definitely justified, because it’s more than simply that – it’s also a renewed confirmation of the theme, or else it calls it into question.

JK: Which cadenza do you play in the finale?

ASM: A very short one by Kreisler. I love this short semiquaver (16th-note) passage, because it lies so well and can be “rattled off” at such an incredible tempo.

JK: To conclude our discussion, let’s come back to Karajan again. When you say that Karajan rehearsed with you in Lucerne for days on end, is that not something to be taken for granted?

ASM: Nothing that Karajan did can be taken for granted, and I don’t think anyone who didn’t work with him really knows just how seriously he took music. At the beginning he said to me: “You must work with only the best musicians, only the best conductors. Only then will you learn something.” Of course one could also turn that around and say that it’s good to be able to come through in adverse circumstances and to make the best of things. But basically you can only learn something when you’re together with people who know a great deal more than you do, who have vision and who inoculate you as early as possible with the germ of curiosity.

Translation: Richard Evidon

KURT MASUR is one of the most widely admired and respected musicians of his generation, known to both orchestras and audiences as not only a distinguished conductor, but also as a humanist. His close and intense collaboration with the New York Philharmonic, where he served as Music Director for eleven years, from 1991 to 2002, marked by a consistently high quality of performance and artistic spirit. Under Mr. Masur’s guidance, the Philharmonic launched a number of successful initiatives, including the orchestra’s return to live, national radio broadcasts. Upon his departure from the post of Philharmonic Music Director he was appointed Music Director Emeritus by the Board of Directors.

From 1970 until 1996, he served as Gewandhaus Kapellmeister of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, a position of profound historic importance that has been held by such figures as Felix Mendelssohn, Arthur Nikisch, Wilhelm Furtwängler, and Bruno Walter. Upon his retirement from that post, the Gewandhaus named him its first-ever Conductor Laureate. Mr. Masur serves as a guest conductor with the world’s leading orchestras and holds the lifetime title of Honorary Guest Conductor of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. A professor at the Leipzig Academy of Music since 1975, he has received numerous honorary degrees: in 1996 he received the Gold Medal of Honour for Music from the National Arts Club; in 1997 he was awarded the titles of Commander of the Legion of Honour by the French government and New York City Cultural Ambassador by the City of New York.

In September 2000, Maestro Masur became Principal Conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra. At the end of his contract with the New York Philharmonic in 2002, he became Music Director of the Orchestre National de France. In 1998, Mr. Masur celebrated 50 years as a professional conductor.

On 18 February 1999, the NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC, the oldest orchestra in the USA and one of the oldest in the world, performed its 13,000th concert – a milestone unmatched by any other orchestra. Under the influence of its celebrated music directors – among them Theodore Thomas, Anton Seidl, Walter Damrosch, Gustav Mahler, Arturo Toscanini, John Barbirolli, Artur Rodzinski, Bruno Walter, Dimitri Mitropoulos, Leonard Bernstein, Pierre Boulez, Zubin Mehta,

and Kurt Masur – the Philharmonic has played a leading role in American musical life since its founding in 1842. It has consistently championed the new music of its time, giving many important works, such as Dvor?ák’s “New World” Symphony and Rachmaninov’s Third Piano Concerto, their first performances. The pioneering tradition continues, with works by major contemporary composers regularly scheduled each season.

In the 20th century, the New York Philharmonic’s remarkable achievements in radio, television, and other media have helped shape communications history. In 1922 it became one of the first orchestras to broadcast a live radio concert, and the live coast–to–coast broadcast of 1930 was the earliest of its kind. Today, the Philharmonic is the only American symphony orchestra to be broadcast live nationally on a regular basis. Each year, the orchestra performs approximately 170 concerts for audiences of nearly a million and appears on the Live From Lincoln Center television broadcasts, which are seen by more than 15 million viewers. In 1965, the Philharmonic launched an enormously popular series of free public concerts in the parks of New York City. The Liberty Weekend Concert in Central Park on 5 July 1986 drew an estimated 800,000 listeners, the largest audience in history for a classical music concert.